Sunday's Showdowns: Stories and Notes from PPL Park's Quarterfinal Games

Chester, Pa. and PPL Park, home of the MLS's Philadelphia Union, played gracious host to two big quarterfinal games today, as fans got to soak up the sun and enjoy a new and impressive lacrosse facility.

Luckily for those fans, the early game pitting Notre Dame against Virginia was a mostly close and dramatic affair that saw the Irish emerge the 12-8 winners. They punch their tickets for a date with Loyola in the Final Four.

The late game lacked much drama as Duke found their stride and steamrolled potential Cinderalla Colgate 17-6, earning their shot at Maryland, a rematchin of last year's semifinal bout between the Terps and the Blue Devils.

Duke's Senior Sunday

On a weekend where many colleges enjoy commencement festivities, Duke's seniors used the field at PPL Park like their graduation podium. In a dominating 17-6 performance, the effort was led by a superlative senior class.

Rob Rotanz led all scorers with five goals and an assist, but line mate and fellow senior Justin Turri was not far behind, posting one goal and three helpers. CJ Costabile was an animal in the middle of the field, winning 14 of 20 draws and scooping of an incredible 15 ground balls. Though Mike Manley may not have gotten the better of his match up, he led a Duke defense that kept Colgate to six goals, tying their second-lowest scoring output this season.

A lot of coaches help inspire the team by emphasizing that winning means advancing and having one more week of lacrosse, one more week to be together as a team.

Duke coach John Danowski said after the game that at times, that can trump winning, the fact that “we get to be together for another week.”

The graduating Blue Devils were “playing like seniors, playing with a sense of urgency,” Danowski said.”Just playing lacrosse and making the right plays. We say each week, new heroes to be had. I'm very proud of our senior group.”

-Zach Babo

Baum and Costabile Tewaaraton Campaigns

If this game was seen as a stage for Colgate attackman Peter Baum and Duke LSM CJ Costabile to make their cases for the Tewaaraton, Costabile definitely produced a banner effort today, while Baum struggled as the game wore on.

Locked up with Duke sophomore Henry Lobb, Baum scored early on one of his signature moves, curling from behind the cage and shooting as his hands come free topside.

“I felt like I had a speed advantage,” Baum said about how he thought he could duel with Lobb. But Baum was not able to press that advantage much, as Duke began to dominate possessions. The few looks Baum did get, he was met by goalie Dan Wigrizer who ended with nine saves, many impressive.

After the game, Danowski compared Baum's skill set to one of his former players, Ned Crotty. With such regard for Baum, Danowski was impressed by Lobb's effort to control the prolific scorer.

It might be tough to imagine with how strong of a senior campaign he's had, but Costabile seemed to take it to another level this week as well. Winning 70 percent of his draws and snagging 15 groundballs kept the possession battle decidedly in Duke's favor as the game wore on.

“We've watched CJ now over his career play like that,” Danowski said. “He's such an understated young man...

“Boy are we going to miss him,” Danowski said. “Sometimes we do take him for granted because he's so quite.”

Costabile's reflection of his effort typifies those sentiments.

As the Tewaaraton hopeful summed it up, “I was fortunate enough to sometimes be in the right spot and try to pick up a ground ball.”

-Z.B.

Second and Third Quarter Domination

A lot of people talk about finishing strong and ending strong, but Duke dominates the middle of the game like few others. On the season, the Blue Devils have outscored opponents 120-79 in the second and third quarters, and today they continued that trend.

“The second quarter was the difference,” Colgate coach Mike Murphy said after the game.

The Blue Devils held a 13-1 edge in the second and third quarters today, when they broke the game wide open with a 13-0 run over 26 minutes and 14 seconds, from the late first quarter until the middle of the third.

“Our guys do seem to realize a little bit, and gain some insight into what we're doing and what our opponent's trying to do,” in those middle quarters, Danowski said.

After falling behind 4-2 to Colgate with 3:38 left in the first, Danowski called a timeout, and from there the game changed.

“It was a bit of a deep breath timeout,” Turri said after the game. “After that, we just calmed down.”

Danowski said he called the timeout with the purpose of settling his team down, not changing things up.

“The beginning of the game, you're going to hyperventilate, you can't catch your breath,” Danowski said after the game. “There was no strategy, no yelling and screaming. Just everybody take a deep breath, and let's go back and play.”

Duke came out of the timeout and scored two quick goals, and from there the game changed.

“Momentum's a funny thing,” Rotanz said after the game. “I think everyone was feeling it.”

Through the second and third quarters, Duke exploited an 11-5 face-off edge and a 25-14 groundball edge to throttle possessions and take control.

“It's definitely tough standing there watching,” Baum said of the frustration of the Colgate offense not getting the ball. Once the team got down, the wheels came off the bus as the Raiders pressed to score and instead turned the ball over 12 times in those two quarters. “They kind of buried us in the second quarter.”

-Z.B.

PPL Park is a Great Place to Play

While the second game may have been tough to watch, especially if you were a Colgate fan, you couldn't have found a much nicer place to watch it than Chester, Pa.'s PPL Park. The facility is perfect for lacrosse.

A crowd of 10,770 came out to enjoy the beautiful weather and picturesque facility, and if they came away from the experience like Danowski, they will gladly come back here gain.

“It would be really cool if Major League Lacrosse had a facility like that; it would be great; phenomenal setting, phenomenal place,” Danowski said.

He took a walk around the venue yesterday when the team had a walk through and was very impressed by the facility. He complimented the fact that it had great sight lines and there were no bad seats in the house. With a capacity a little smaller than 20,000, it's a “perfect size for our sport....It just seemed like a great place to enjoy a game.”

-Z.B.

A Joyous Time For Notre Dame, A Bittersweet End For UVa.

This all looks so different than a few weeks ago for Notre Dame. A few weeks ago, Irish coach Kevin Corrigan sat red-faced, you could almost see the veins in his neck bulging out like snakes he was so irritated after Notre Dame’s upset loss to St. John’s in the semifinal round of the Big East Tournament.

Fast forward to Sunday at PPL Park in Chester, Pa., in the NCAA quarterfinals, and you’d swear Corrigan was Santa Claus.

“I’m just thrilled to be here against all we know is a very good Virginia team and thrilled to be going on to play next week,” said a downright cheery Corrigan, after seeing his team surge forward with a six-goal fourth quarter to quell Virginia, 12-10, and advance to the NCAA semifinals to play No. 1 seed Loyola (Md.) next Saturday at Gillette Stadium.

If there is a team that’s rolling at the right time, it’s Notre Dame (13-2). The Irish have now scored a combined 25 goals in their two NCAA Tournament games in reaching the semifinals for the second time in three years.

-Joe Santoliquito

Midfield Waves

Against Virginia, eight different players scored for the Irish. It shows their balance. Max Pfeifer led the way with three goals.

“The fact is, we play three midfield lines and we say, just the coaches talking after the game, the great thing about our team is we don’t have more any idea than you do who’s going to step up in the next game or the next quarter, or anything else,” Corrigan said. “It’s really been kind of fun, because they’re all buying into what we’re doing and every game, or every half; it changes who we’re getting plays from.

“The most gratifying thing about that is everyone is out there trying to make plays. You get late in the year and almost try to protect what you have instead of really just everyone being focused on making that next play, and to my way of understanding it, it’s about making that next play and that’s how you get to the end.”

Corrigan plays a lot of players, and he felt that would really be a difference late, and to Notre Dame’s advantage in the fourth quarter: Running three midfields, running a bunch of defensive middies, getting legions out there. As opposed to Virginia, which ran its first midfield throughout most of the fourth quarter.

“We thought that would a difference late,” Corrigan said. “They can’t keep running those guys out there we said after the first quarter, and if they do, it’s going to catch up with them a little bit. We look at that as a strength of our team. That’s who we are, and who we’ve been all year. There’s no one on our team who you can say, ‘Golly, look at the numbers that guy has.’ Yet, as a team, we seem to find a way to be up by one at the end a lot of times. That’s been the focus of our guys.”

-J.S.

John Kemp’s Cool

Irish goalie John Kemp was outstanding again, making 14 saves, nine in the second half and four key stops in the third quarter when Virginia was pressuring Notre Dame.

“John Kemp is the best goalie in the country and he shows it game after game,” Corrigan said. “I wouldn’t even get into a conversation as to who was second. I think he’s been consistently terrific all year long. We sometimes get credit for playing such good defense that John Kemp is like easy back there. I don’t know. It didn’t look very easy for me today. He’s just a great goalie and our best player.”

-J.S.

Ryan Foley’s Status

With 7:41 left to play, the game took a scary turn after Ryan Foley scored to give Notre Dame a 9-8 lead. Virginia’s Scott McWilliams lowered his left shoulder and slammed right into Foley's chin right after the goal. After being down for about five minutes, Foley had to be taken off the field on a stretcher.

Foley resisted medical care and refused to be taken off the field, waving his arms frantically.

“Ryan’s at the hospital and all of the tests have come out well and he’s awake, aware and lucid,” Corrigan said. “He never really lost consciousness on the field, but he wasn’t exactly with us there for a few minutes, but he’s doing well. They’re doing some further testing and the last I hear, they anticipate him coming home with us tonight.

“The Foley goal was huge for two reasons—it was obviously a big goal, just on its own, and clearly our guys are pretty leveled-headed kids. They got pretty fired up, and they very quickly understood that if we let that distract us and turn it into a junk-it-up-out-there-in-the-end. It’s not who they are and what they’re about. They focused and realized the best they could do is win the game. Let’s just stay focused on that.”

As for Foley wanting to leave ... “We were told Ryan was going to be okay, and I told our guys let’s turn the energy on making the next play and not on retaliating. Maybe that’s harder with other kids, but our guys are terrific kids and handle themselves very, very well as they do in almost every situation.”

Was the Foley hit legal?

“I’m not touching that,” Corrigan responded, when asked why there wasn’t a flag on the play.

Great Line

“Ryan clearly did not want to come off the field, he didn’t know he was on the field—but he didn’t want to come off,” Corrigan said. “I’m not sure he knew he was even in Philadelphia. But he was fairly adamant wanting to get up, but he was a little bit out of it, and I think that was his competitive nature taking over.”

-J.S.

Steele Stanwick’s Departure

There have been many storied players that have come through Virginia, but Sunday may have marked the end of possibly the best player in Cavaliers’ history—Steele Stanwick.

Marked everywhere he went on the field, sometimes drawing the whole defense with him, Stanwick finished with two goals and five assists, padding already gaudy numbers by the senior attackman. He reached 50 assists for the season during the game, becoming only the second Cavalier player ever to accomplish such a feat. Jay Connor had 58 assists in 1972.

“I’ve tried to think not too long and hard whether or not he’s the best lacrosse player I’ve ever been around, but he might be,” Virginia coach Don Starsia said. “He’s definitely the smartest, the best skilled player I’ve ever been around, and certainly a kid who breaks the all-time scoring record at a place like Virginia, which has had so many great players over the years, speaks to his ability.

“Maybe I’m biting my tongue here just a little, but I keep on saying if what you want to say he’s the best lacrosse player, maybe the best attackman that played at Virginia, it’s just begins to tell the story who that kid is. It’s been a joy to get to know, to be part of his life, and this is why you do what you do for as long as I have because you get to run into kids like Steele.”